Songfacts®:

• John Lydon was in fine form when interviewed by Bill Turnbull and Sian Williams on the BBC Breakfast news programme, July 7, 2010. The latter suggested his song "Religion" was "raw," of which he said "that states the case quite clearly" and, alluding to the then ongoing scandal over child abuse including sexual abuse, he added, "in light of the Catholic Church's scandals at the moment, I hate to say it, but seen it coming." This was partly due to his once being a choirboy, but there is another reason for his antagonism towards, religion, and especially the Catholic Church.
  
  When asked by Sian Williams, "Your Mum was Catholic, wasn't she?" a look of pain came over his face, and his voice was filled with bitterness as he replied: "They treated 'er very badly; they wouldn't give 'er [the] last rites when she died of cancer in the hospital, so we 'ave a really bad, negative view, our family, of the Catholic Church."
• Among other things, Lydon's song notes that God is dog spelt backwards, and although probably Al Stewart wouldn't agree with all its sentiments, there are obvious parallels between this punk-based rant against Christianity (Catholicism in particular) and the folk-based "Gethsemane, Again". >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2